ORANGE PARK, Fla. — Eighteen high school juniors and seniors from schools around our area are spending the summer at the HCA Florida Orange Park Hospital participating in a one-of-a-kind volunteer program that benefits our health systems across the first coast.
Christopher Feliz, a junior at Fleming Island High School, dreams of becoming a surgeon.
“A general surgeon or a neurosurgeon. I'm drifting between those two… It's just that experience of getting to like, know your patient better and help them through like a tough time and help them heal it like it really appeals to me," Christopher Feliz, a Junior at Fleming Island High School, said.
Feliz, is one of 18 teens who are spending the next eight weeks assisting hospital staff, stocking patient rooms and learning from doctors what it takes to earn a career in the medical field.
It’s a program that helps students earn what it takes to earn a career in the medical field, and it also lightens the workload of hospital staff.
“I think even doing the smallest thing might help them just a little bit like giving them water, like cutting up the boxes, I hope restocking. I hope that helps them in a little bit like de-stresses a little bit," Yuki Diaz, a Junior at Fleming Island High School, said.
The HCA Florida Orange Park Hospital Summer Volunteer Program is the only one of its kind in the area.
Programs leaders believe this will prepare students to become leaders in the medical field and to bring the skills back to their local communities.
“It helps like young things that may inspire them to become like, like whatever they want to be a doctor, surgeon or nurse. And the staff here is really nice, and it really does like give us confidence," Feliz said.